what I've planted so far

I need to write this down, for crop rotation purposes to avoid pests.

From my backdoor, straight ahead and against the fence from the far right to about 20' left: okra.
Blank space to the left for about 15', then sweet potatoes (three varieties).  Blank space (mizuna once I beat off the ants?), then some cabbage and broccoli against the fence to the front fence.

In some spots around, beans and watermelon, to the left of the raised beds.  Far right raised bed, swiss chard and lettuce.  Middle bed, beets and carrot.  Left bed, sweet potatoes and now garlic and mizuna. 

Clearly I need more space to plant! :) 

a planting day, hello fall

Just planted:

garlic (softneck, silver white)
mizuna (a type of mustard green that I'm very fond of)
cabbage (Copenhagen Market)
leek (King Richard)
celery (Utah)
broccoli (di cicco)

One of the beds that I'd prepped and covered had a ton of fire ants in it, so I need to deal with that. 

In the meantime, in a raised bed I put in garlic and mizuna.  There had been a sweet potato plant there, just one, and its roots were all over but none formed ready to harvest.  Bummer.

In a small bed that I just prepped and mixed with compost (and used a colander to sift out the rocks, which I should probably do everywhere), I put in a few leeks and celery seeds.

In another bed that I had earlier prepped, I put in broccoli and cabbage.  Not much, maybe just five plants each. Trying to see what's growing well here.  I also put in a bag of compost there.  (it's a compost mix that I buy locally from a company that collects food and vegetative waste from supermarkets and such and then composts it.)

I'm afraid to tally up how much money I'm spending on gardening.  I need to think of it as a hobby, with costs, rather than as a way to self-sufficiency.  I am learning a lot and could produce more food to eat, but mostly I'm just experimenting. 

That said, I just pulled my first satsuma off a tree I planted last spring, and it was super tasty.  I would like to have more food coming from my yard as I really like the idea of that.  The execution I sometimes fall short on.  But, does it matter, so long as I'm having fun and not going bankrupt? 

There are still some watermelons out there trying ... we'll see. 

 

putting in some winter crops

This is what I planted today.  I recently realized that while Botanical Interests has very pretty packaging, there's no guarantee things are GMO-free unless labeled that way, so I probably need to shift brands.

I have a 4' x 4' garden bed that a community organization put in for me and then filled with steer manure and put in out-of-season plants.  Um ... thanks?  I've since then amended it with actual soil, let it age, and put in a basil plant and some beans.  Today I planted in the other part of the box some chard and lettuce.  I have some beds that I built that are about 10" high, 3' wide and 6' long.  (My neighbors though I was building coffins!)  I planted three short rows of carrots and then beets the long ways for the rest of it.  In a couple of weeks I'll plant some more carrots in the bed where I put one sweet potato plant and it blew up.  Looks like this.

 Here are watermelon blossoms, other sweet potatoes, and okra.  And one with a bee hidden behind the okra flower - it was shy, but very happy with the blossom. 

I'm seeing lots more bees recently, which is a very good sign.  I'd love to put in a hive myself, but I'm just too close to neighbors and don't know if they're allergic. 

The beans I planted earlier seem to be growing ok, even saw some blossoms on some. 

The sweet potatoes ... hm, when do I harvest them?  i keep using the leaves for cooking and want to extend that out. 

The Bradford watermelon has set some fruit that I put some pine needle mulch under ... we'll see if it works out.  The other watermelon seemed to be doing well but now is showing some mildew or other problem. 

And the okra is just absolutely thriving.  Getting to the point of it growing practically before my eyes.  I love okra!  So good for my gardening self-esteem. 

In planning, I'm hauling loads of horse manure to age ... the problem is it's mixed with woodchips.  So gotta give it enough time. 

Next year I want sweet potatoes all over the front yard -that would be a good place for their sprawliness and beauty.  Maybe by then I will also have put in some tropical vegetation and a rain garden, but I definitely want sweet potatoes and some other thing there that I want in large quantities.  Sunflowers?  Yes, but something else edible. 

update 8.23.15

Information on dividing irises here.

Beans are sprouting well.  We've had lots of rain but they didn't drown.  Something is eating them but they look as though they'll struggle along and be ok, but I'll keep an eye on them.

Okra is producing and I need to gather it every day or it gets woody.

Some of the sweet potato leaves are dying back and I'm not sure what that's about - I'm nowhere near ready to harvest them, but I'd better look at that.

The watermelon are doing fine and I am sure hoping that they produce.

I am solarizing spots in my yard to kill off the weeds and I'll work in aged horse manure and mulch (newspaper and pine needs).  It's still too hot for me to want to work outside in the heat of the day, and school has started and I'm getting busy, but bit by bit I'll stay on top of the garden chores.  

bush beans & update

The okra is producing well and I'm putting it in soup today.  There are one or two plants with lots of ants (right by an ant hill) which I knock off occasionally with a hose, though usually let them be.  There are a few at the other end with some bugs that look like assassin bugs, though they could be juvenile leafcutters. So long as I only see a few it's not a big deal, and I just flick them off to annoy them. 

The watermelon plants are blooming.

The sweet potatoes continue to grow and provide me with lots of greens for soups and such. 

Today I'll plant bush beans - Jade (from Botanical Interests).  I see now that's probably not an ideal type, but I'll give it a go.  I have three mounds that I'll plant them on - one was a tree, one was squash, and one I had prepped for squash but lost interest when they didn't do well.  I'll plant the beans there and also in one garden bed (where I currently have basil and nothing else). 

I'm keeping my deeper garden beds for root crops such as carrots and beets.  I plan to prep a few more rows using the now aged horse manure, to plant other winter crops such as cabbage and broccoli, chard and lettuce. 

I'm holding off on planting any more right now because I'll be out of town a good chunk of September and I'd rather not worry about having somebody water the garden then. 

When it cools off in the next few weeks, I want to get another load of horse manure to let age in order to build beds in the spring for summer crops.  Best to not plant crops in the same place every year, and all my soil needs to amended significantly. 

okra!

Saw the start of an okra flower this morning so went out this evening and there's an okra pod!

Just on one plant so far, but the others are growing fast.  Up to my waist.

Ten weeks to okra.  71 days. 

Sweet potatoes are doing great - I've been harvesting their leaves to eat. That's enough to make me happy even if I weren't going to get sweet potato roots. 

The original watermelon and zucchini just aren't doing anything so I pulled it.  The Bradford watermelon seems to be taking off so that's great. 

update June 30

First baby zucchini showing itself!  Blossoms started a couple days ago, so that's like about six weeks from planting to first signs of zucchini.  Quick!

Sweet potatoes seem to be fine, though the Beauregard that was shipped to me was pretty weak and it was quickly picked off - only two remaining. They seem fine and one has tendrils heading out, so we'll see.

Watermelon and okra are much slower.  Some larger leaves are showing on a couple of okra, but they're still all pretty small. I thought they'd all be further along by now, but maybe they'll pick up speed as the summer heat really rolls in. 

update 6.13.15

Today I planted some Bradford watermelons.

I was gone over a week but it rained a bit so things looked fine.

The okra isn't growing as fast as I expected - not enough direct sun I think.  Maybe the same with the watermelon.  The sweet potatoes and squash are doing well.

Okra at 20 days: (they each have 3+ leaves but it's slow growing):

 Sweet potatoes at 14 days:

 Watermelon at 19 days:

 Zucchini at 19 days:

sweet potato slips

Yesterday I received sweet potato slips in the mail from Steele; they were shipped 5/28.  I brought them home and put them in water, but they look pretty sad. 

I got four each of Beauregard, Centennial, and Murasaki.  The second two seem more robust, but I'm not sure the Beauregard was ready to be shipped - quite small, not hardly any roots. 

Well, I'll put them all in the ground and hope for the best.  I prepared soil by digging a trench about 8" deep and 12" wide, and then I mounded the soil up at least another 4".  They don't get direct sun all day because of a neighbor's tree, but I think they'll still get a fair amount - especially once the leaves spread. 

A big part of why I'm growing them is that when in Liberia my favorite food is sweet potato greens.  While I can't duplicate that same dish, I can probably make some nice stir fries and such with the leaves.

If this goes well, I want to save my own slips for next year - these slips are not inexpensive and it's been a bit of a hassle to get them (I thought I'd get them a week ago, and now they won't be hardened before I have to travel).  In general I want to save seeds as much as possible, which today means I need to collect the cilantro seeds from the plant out front that is long expired. 

We'll see.  Going slowly, slowly.  Giving the watermelon and squash and sweet potatoes room to spread so it will seem like I'm gardening my whole yard, but lots aren't very big in New Orleans - if I really want to maximize productivity, there would need to be some vertical elements.  But not this year, except for okra leaning against a chain link fence, and I'll construct a bean teepee.  The lot where I'm growing now is not going to be my permanent garden - I only plan to be in this house a few more years, and I put in fruit trees that will soon hopefully grow and eventually shade everything.  For now I'm learning, and it's not going to hurt anything that I'm improving the quality of the soil with organic matter. 

zucchini and watermelon - sprouted 5/30

Those little plants popping up so robustly.  Five days.  Not bad at all. 

okra sprouting!

We have had very heavy rain since I planted the okra - very, very heavy storms.  I thought maybe it would wash and blow the seeds all away, but tonight I was out front showing a friend something and looked back and all the seeds had sprouted.  What a great germination rate, really.  It's always hard for me to thin - I shouldn't have planted as densely as instructed. 

row covers

I was thinking about blowing off row covers and not worrying about it, and then I went out to the yard and there were thrips galore, and several young grasshoppers, and dozens of snails, and ...

I just ordered this summerweight garden fabric and hope it helps!

more seeds, for late summer planting

This is what I'm ordering right now from Botanical Interests.

Yes, I'm already obsessed about winter harvests.  Most of these go in the ground in August, so I'm not *that* premature in ordering.

Some of these are super exciting - like the delicata.  I could only find some here once for a minute.  It's an amazing winter squash, so easy to deal with, and such a pity it's not more widely grown and sold.

If you've never had mizuna, I pity you.  While it makes a great salad, soup, or stirfry, my absolute favorite way is to boil new potatoes, put in some olive oil (or a little bacon with grease), freshly ground pepper, and then coarsely chopped mizuna.  Putting it in with the hot potatoes makes it wilt a bit.  It is SO GOOD.  I ate so much of that last year.

Note that I'm not trying crops that are more challenging to me or I've never tried.  I want some successes first.

The thing about growing my own food is that there are MILLIONS of seeds to choose from. But in a typical American grocery store, only a few of those things are on offer.  It makes me sad.

So here's to the future, and the hope that seeds bring. 

planted

Today i planted okra.  I used a grub hoe to clear grass from an area along a chainlink fence, then I laid down newspaper and put a vegetable soil mix on top. Then I mounded it a bit, wet it, and planted the seeds 1/2" deep, about 2-3" apart.  I plan to thin to about 6-8". 

Tomorrow I plan to plant squash (zucchini) and watermelon.  For these, I am buildiing hills - I'm digging holes more than a foot wide and maybe 8" deep, filling it with the soil mix and making a mound.  For the watermelon, I'll put horse manure in the bottom half of the hole.  Squash seeds about 1" down, watermelon 1/2"; I'll plant about 5-6 seeds per mound and thin to about 3-4 plants. 

Mirlitons are vining up the chain link nicely.  They aren't growing vigorously, but they are growing. 

The last of the pomegranate tree's blossoms are falling, but don't see any fruit.  Yet?

The citrus seem fine except the blood orange has some spots I need to investigate.  The loquat tree had some bad aphid infestation - I hosed it harshly with water a few times and it seems better.

I am pulling up clear plastic I'd put down to solarize.  In some places, it seemed to work pretty well, and in other places not so much.  My biggest issues were with holding it down and with the weeds all growing out from the edges.

Yesterday a friend went with me to get some horse manure - now I have a good source.  "Please, take all you want!  Our horses make 100 pounds per day!"  It's in a big mound in the front of my house, where I plan to leave it for a few months, hoping it just breaks down on its own without much work on my behalf.  I may go get another load in the next few weeks, to have a good amount ready for fall planting. 

I'm wondering if I need to get floating row covers.  I have struggled with insects a lot when gardening in New Orleans.  I guess that answers my question.  Just need to pay close attention to pollination needs.  (Which makes me want honeybees sooner than later.) 

starting again

Different house though same neighborhood, I just got the lot next door and am looking at gardening the heck out of it. 

My soil quality is low - it's compacted clay with a layer of sand and then weeds on top.  So I went to Wood Materials and got so far two cubic yards of vegetable garden soil mix (May 14 and May 16; about $40/cu yard).  It looks to have wood chunks in it which isn't thrilling, and other vegetative non-composted matter, but I know to let it sit a bit. Even after just a week of sitting, what I shoveled into the beds looks more hummussy. 

I have one free 4' x 4' x 6" bed from a local nonprofit, and I built two more which are 2' x 6' x 10".  I remove the weeds underneath with a grub hoe, then put a layer of brown paper bags, then put in the purchased vegetable mix.  I'm also clearing along the chainlink fence with a similar method though without the beds - along there I want to plant okra.  On the chainlink on the other side of the house, I have some mirliton plants which seem ok now (I planted some late last year and they died in the winter). 

I recently ordered seeds from Seed Savers exchange: okra (Clemson spineless), watermelon (Black Beauty), zucchini (Blacktail Mountain).  Last night I ordered sweet potato slips from Steele: a mix of (Beauregard, Centennial, and Murasaki).  And then on NPR I saw an interesting story about Bradford watermelons so I went and ordered a package of their seeds, too.  They're expensive, but I can save the seeds to plant next year if I want, and I like the whole Bradford family thing - saving a species from extinction, using money for help in poverty-stricken areas, etc. 

The last time I grew okra it went like gangbusters and I was able to cook a lot with it and pickle it, and the pickled okra was wildly popular.  I eat a lot of zucchini, and I would like a reason to get a spiralizer.  For the sweet potatoes, I eat a lot each year and there's a learning curve for me so I'll go step by step - I want to see what works best for me here, see about saving the and making my own slips next year, etc.  And for watermelons, I eat A LOT of watermelon each year, and I want to make some juice and syrup for cocktails (which I'll freeze), and pickle the rind.  i hear the Bradford are great for that.  Also, just seeing what works here.  I've never had good luck with melons and squash because of powdery mildew and such, so I want to see what I can figure out. 

I want to get some good tomatoes to plant in the next month or so with the idea of canning a lot - I use a tremendous amount of canned, diced tomatoes in winter.  It's a lot of work but maybe I'll find a friend who wants to join.  I've also struggled with growing tomatoes in New Orleans - with the fungus and the tomato hornworms and all that.  So, I want to take it slow and see what I can do. 

I will need to put down some bird netting until the plants are set - I get a lot of birds in my yard every day, probably eating weed seeds.  They will obliterate the planted seeds and seedlings, given a chance. 

I may need to set up an irrigation system, but I'm kind of avoiding that if I can. 

Then I need to start thinking about winter crops, and that's where I go hogwild.  I'll have to think about if I want to build more beds or if I just want to clear space and mound new soil mix and that be good enough.  I'll see how it works with the okra.  Maybe I'll use beds for root crops, to be sure it's deep enough. 

It's all learning right now. I read a lot and reflect a lot, but so much is just dependent on fluke - the microclimate of my yard, the bugs, etc. 

I do have fruit trees in: a calamondin I put in last September has been producing constantly, providing me with lovely gin & tonics.  The meyer's lemon died, probably from overwatering.  Then I put others in two months ago and the avocado mostly died (probably from the wind and overwatering - there were heavy rains for weeks and that turned out to be a particularly swampy part of the yard).  The pomegranate is good, the lime and feijoa and loquat and satsuma and peach and persimmon trees seem fine.  The blood orange tree's leaves have some brown spots that I need to look into.  When I planted them I dug large holes and put in soil amendments and covered with crushed pine straw, but the weeds are so invasive so I need to clear again and put down newspaper and more mulch.